Pawar bats for high price for farmers

Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Monday regretted that those making “a lot of noise” over farmers getting a high price for paddy this year through the minimum support price mechanism (MSP) did not bother to look into their plight in general.

“The cost of each and every input for the farmer, such as electricity and labour, has increased manifold. It is our duty to ensure remunerative price to the farmers,” he said, addressing a function to inaugurate a Rs 150-crore ‘Mega Food Park’ at Tirupati in southern Andhra Pradesh.

The comments assume significance in the light of a recent controversy over the almost 16 per cent increase in the MSP of paddy for the 2012-13 crop marketing season that will start from October. The move was criticised on the grounds that it could further fuel the already high food inflation.

“We must understand that a remunerative price to the farmers and affordable cost to the consumer are not really contradictory if the gap between the producer and consumer is bridged by the food processing industry,” Pawar said.

When unseasonal rains shot onion prices up to Rs 50 a kilo, TV channels “spent hours together” on the plight of the consumer. Within the next three weeks, its price slid to Re 1 per kg, but that could not attract the same media attention, he added.